Michael (Wild Men #8)

Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Emery

“Whew.” I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I let out a big gust of air. “This is pretty intense.”

“Yeah.” Michael’s eyes are fathomlessly dark. “It is.”

I show him the anchor tattoo on my wrist. “I got this in memory of my uncle.”

He traces it gently with the rough pad of his index finger. “You two were close?”

“He was like a second father to me. He and my aunt…” I choke up. “They are just the best.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, too.”

“Thank you. Tell me about your work.”

Surprise crosses his face, but his voice is neutral when he says, “People don’t usually want to know about fishing.”

“I’m not most people. I want to know.”

He rolls his shoulders. “I guess I always thought it was my thing. You know, the one part of my life I could never live without.”

I watch as he clenches his jaw. Something has clearly stressed him out related to his job .

“And now?” I ask him. “Your thinking has changed?”

He shrugs. “I’m not sure. We survived a storm last month on the water. Barely survived.” His voice cracks.

“I’m so sorry.” I shift closer to him. “That sounds terrifying.”

He gives me a second look. “It’s worse for the people on shore.”

“What do you mean?”

Pain laces his face. “My mom. My brother. Myself. All the families standing on the pier or waiting in the bar. Just hoping for good news. Or any news, frankly. Because even bad news is better than nothing. We found out that the Lucky Queen wasn’t coming back at sunrise.”

“Is that why the sunrise is so meaningful to you and your family?”

“It’s always easier to know than to be left in the dark. Even if the news is devastating. But for those left on shore, the devastation doesn’t end when the uncertainty does. It lasts a lifetime.”

He’s going to push me away again.

I can read the emotion on his face like I’m reading a book. He thinks he’ll hurt me . Worse than that, actually. He genuinely thinks he’ll destroy me if we stay together. Because he knows that at any moment, he could leave me. And he doesn’t feel like he has any control over the matter.

I don’t want to lose him. Not like this. Not without getting to know him first.

So I make a snap decision.

“A casual fling would be best.”

“Wait…what?” Michael stares at me like just spoke to him in German.

I don’t blame him for being thrown off.

I hardly recognize my own voice when I continue this utter madness of a plan I hatched on a whim .

“Hot, sweaty sex on Wild Ranch. Wild and uninhibited sex.”

Michael’s lips curve into a ghost of a smile.

He’s coming back. The man I met and fell for last night is still in there behind the wall of pain and grief he disappeared into when my purse decided to destroy any chance of a real thing between us.

Ignoring the slice of pain that cuts through me, I raise my hand. “Shall we high-five on it?”

“You’re only on Wild Ranch for a week,” he says slowly as he meets my hand half-heartedly.

“Exactly.”

“I’m here for maybe two weeks.”

“I could extend my stay to match yours.”

“Two weeks of pretending we don’t have this invisible string of loss and pain tying us together?”

“I guess so.”

“No strings attached?”

“Right.”

He’s got his demons, and that may be why I came up with this ridiculous plan, but if I’m honest, I’ve got mine too. I’m scared also. Because if I acknowledge the string, it could either bond us together in an unbreakable bond or—and this is my fear—drive us apart forever.

It’s a risk I’m afraid to take. I enjoy Michael’s company—and let’s be honest, his body—too much to risk losing him before our time is over.

So, we’ll play a game and have fun. No pressure.

“No strings will keep that invisible string from strangling us,” I say.

Michae l

Anchoring us.

That’s what the string will do.

Emery deserves so much more than to be anchored in a sea of pain and loss. To be permanently tied to a man whose paternal line is cursed. I don’t even know how that town rumor got such traction, and I don’t really give a crap either way, because all I need to remember is the devastation on Ma’s face when we got the news the Lucky Queen wasn’t coming back.

Emery surely missed her uncle when he drowned, but she still has her father, and she wasn’t standing on the dock when the boat was lost. She doesn’t get on a boat for a living and live with the grief every day.

And thank God. I want her to stay the free-spirited, hopeful, sunny woman that she is.

Not become grumpy and glass-half-empty like I am. I also want to fuck her again.

And I know she wants it too.

So, I calculate the risk of her proposal.

Two weeks of casual sex is as low risk as we can get.

“I’m in.”